


Much Stronger Than Forever

by BonneyQ



Series: Longer Than Forever [2]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonneyQ/pseuds/BonneyQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Juvia is finally free and safe again, back in Fairy Tail. Or is she? Gray noticed a change in the Water Mage, but couldn't put a finger on what it was. Maybe together, they could work the trouble out and save Juvia's life once more. [Sequel of Far Longer Than Forever]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go! The sequel of “Far Longer Than Forever”, if you haven’t read it this will be a little confusing, but I guess that it can be read without it.  
> WARNING: This story will contain triggers such as: rape and death (even though nothing too graphic). Please, don’t read it if it makes you uncomfortable. I’ll try to do it as light as I can.

The Boss had his hands on her bare stomach, Juvia had her hands bound up to the headboard and a gag on her mouth so she couldn’t say a word. The blonde man had his nose buried deep on her throat, biting her so hard and painfully that the blunette was sure there were blood coming out of the wound.  
  
 _It hurt so much. But what was worst was the way he touched her._  
  
 _Juvia was dirty now, filthy with his hands going south towards her bare thighs while whispering: “You are mine, Little Fairy.”_  
  
 _She couldn’t yell for help, so the girl just struggled to get her hands free and moved her body in a way the man couldn’t do what he was planning on doing, but it just made the sadist bastard laugh and bite her neck once again._  
  
 _When would her Gray-sama arrive? Her friends? Didn’t they know in how much pain she was?_  
  
As if he was reading her mind, he stopped the ministrations for a moment, just to whisper: “They’ll not come. I owe you now.”  
  
With a startle, Juvia sat on her bed, breathing hard and looking around to situate herself; it was her bedroom in Fairy Hills. She was safe, the rest of the room, though, was a mess: water had wet her bed and was flowing down to the floor.  
  
The Water Mage sighed and made it all disappear once more. It was the third night in a row that she had to dry her bed and floor with magical powers. The nightmares were getting worst and she hardly slept anymore, which was starting to get more and more evident by the bags under her eyes.  
  
After cleaning up and making the rain stop outside Fairy Hills – the rain still fell when she got upset, even in her sleep –, Juvia sat on her bed, elbows resting on her thighs while she buried her face on her hands, exhausted. Maybe she was having a case of PTSD?  
  
She looked over her bookshelf where she put her Gray-sama doll – which she made it and loved it very much – and couldn’t even look at it right, so much that it was banned from her arms until she was better again. Not even her plushie should touch her in such estate.  
  
A mess. For the past two weeks since she returned home, Juvia was a total mess.  
  
The nightmares began slowly, always with that horrid man and even though Polyuska – and later Wendy – did heal her broken body, deep inside, Juvia was still broken. She hated what that man did to her; he didn’t violate her but left her not quite herself.  
  
Juvia got up from the bed and went to stand in front of the bull-body mirror. Looking herself in front of it, the blue of her hair contrasting with the camisole she wore was as white as her skin and even though there were no longer bruises on her, inside there were deep scars, things she would never forget.  
  
Outside – despite of the bags under her eyes – she looked normal; inside, she was being torn apart and no one could see.  
  
It was better that way, Juvia never wanted to burden her friends with a few bad dreams. It was going to pass. It always did.  
  


#

Gray stared from far away as Juvia talked excitedly with Mirajane and Cana by the bar. She had taken a very well deserved vacation of two weeks. After being treated by Polyuska and Wendy, the Water Mage was brand new: not a single mark on her body.

But she was different.

Maybe he was going crazy, but there was something going on with her and Gray could feel it that even if she laughed, it didn’t fully reach her eyes. There was no way that the blunette would go through five days in that hellhole and didn’t change.

The Ice Mage touched the scar right above his left eye, his scars were visible; hers, however, were inside and those were the worst kind.

He wanted to help her, but every time the subject came up Gray saw that she easily dodged it, smiling and telling whoever asked that she was fine now that she was home.

The smile was as fake as her words.

Perhaps the man should talk to one of the girls to see if they could help Juvia out? But the blue haired girl was stubborn some times and could refuse to talk. Gajeel was out on a mission and wouldn’t return for another few days.

Yes, Gray was between a rock and a hard place. Maybe he was the one who should talk to her.

If only he knew how.


	2. Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  “Don’t hide it anymore and tell me, Confess to me.  
> Let’s love as much as I’ve been in pain.”  
> NS Yoon-G – If You Love Me

Waking up all sweaty and not rested at all became quite a regular thing for Juvia; the nightmares were so frequent after three weeks of getting free that the Water Mage could barely close her eyes without seeing the Boss and feel his hands on her body. When the nightmares were worse than just touching, she could barely reach the bathroom to get sick and then would spend the rest of the night crying and afraid of returning to sleep.  
  
The Boss didn’t rape her, but after all those nightmares, Juvia was starting to think that she might have blocked something. It wasn’t normal, not even for traumatized person.  
  
It was normal to have nightmares, sure, but it reached to a point where the blue haired mage gave up sleeping until her body couldn’t take anymore. And it was making her appear sick; and perhaps she was.  
  
Desperate for a few hours of rest, Juvia went to see Polyuska and asked for something strong that could knock her out for some time. After talking to the older woman, the medic finally understood that the blunette was in real need of sleeping and gave the mage a medicine that would make her sleep for about eight hours. Thanking Polyuska, Juvia took the medicine that night.  
  
The next day, the medic was surprised to see the blue haired girl in worst shape than she was the day before. She asked if she had taken the medicine and Juvia nodded weakly.  
  
 ___“It didn’t work?” Polyuska asked, surprised.  
  
 ____“It did.” The younger woman sighed and the medic frowned in confusion. “When Juvia has nightmares, she just wakes up after a while, when it gets too horrible; they are somewhat small. With the medicine, Juvia was unable to wake up on her own. It was eight hours of horrors; I was aware of every second of it.”  
  
 ____Polyuska couldn’t believe in her ears: that medicine was known for making people sleep through big commotions and without dreams. For the young Fairy Tail girl to be aware of her nightmares for the whole time… She was not suffering from a normal traumatic emotion; no, there was something behind it.  
  
 ____After asking many questions about her days in captivity, the old woman finally got something out of the mage:  
  
 ____“The Boss… he gave something to Juvia. He talked about Zeref, and made Juvia drink a liquid. It was green and he said that he would have Juvia for longer than her stay there. Does it make any sense?”  
  
 ____The older woman paled. “Did you feel pain after taking it?”  
  
 ____“Hm… Yes. Awful headache” Juvia nodded and then became worried. “You know what is it, don’t you?”  
  
 ____“I think I do.” Polyuska said. “And it’s not good.”  
  
 ___With the promise of returning the next day after the older woman researched better what she thought was given to Juvia, the Water Mage decided to go spend some time at the Guild before heading home for the night.  
  
She sat by the windows, looking towards her friends chat and laugh together – she was too tired to go and go stay with them – and even though tried to pay attention to her surroundings, she rested her head on her arms and felt as her eyelids got heavier and heavier by the second and before realize, the Water Mage fell asleep.  
  


#

Gray noticed the girl sleeping. The Ice Mage was by the bar, drinking a cold beer as he watched her. For the past week, the young man saw how tired she was and wondered what was happening to the blue haired woman.

Juvia looked good for a while after they rescued her and the girls, but not too long after, she started to appear to get more and more tired and even if he didn’t confront the woman himself, Gray knew that something was wrong, his gut was telling him. And the Ice Mage knew better than to doubt his gut again when concerned her.

So, he kept his vigil from afar and somehow Gray thought that was how Juvia felt when she looked over him for afar (that was a nice way of putting, actually).

“Go talk to her, you silly boy.” Mira said softly and he almost jumped, startled.

“Good god woman, we need to put a bell on you.” Gray rolled his eyes and then moved his attention towards the beer. “Quiet as mice.” He mumbled.

The barmaid chuckled. “You should go and talk to her, you know? These last couple of days she doesn’t look right. I worry.” Gray chose not to tell Mirajane that Juvia wasn’t right for at least a couple of weeks. “When we ask, she says she’s fine.” The white haired woman bit her lower lip. “She needs to talk about what happened.”

“She’ll talk when she thinks it’s time.” Gray took a sip of his beer. “We can’t make her.”

“But what if she wants to talk with a specific person?” Mira stared at him pointedly.

Gray sighed. “Mira, you may find hard to believe, but we don’t talk about these things.”

“Really?” The barmaid was not convinced.

“Yeah.” The Ice Mage shrugged. “I mean… when I am down, she comes and talks to me for a while. Or just stays there.” He was about to take another mouthful of his beverage when the words hit him. She was aware of when he was sad, wasn’t she? He had to return the favor somehow. “Oh, shit.”

“Just go and talk to her.” It was Mira’s turn to roll her eyes at him. “You two haven’t been talking much and that worries me more than the bags under her eyes.”

Gray didn’t say, but he felt the same way. He noticed that Juvia seemed to be falling asleep, which made him sigh; that was not the best place for her to fall asleep.

“Yeah.” The Ice Mage told the barmaid. “It… kinda worries me too. She seems to be drifting away, I don’t know.”

“Look, Gray, I saw how you were when she was missing.” Mira put a hand on his forearm. “You were so worried, and don’t try to tell me that you’d be like that with any of our friends.” The woman said before he could say stupid things. “You were especially distressed with her disappearance, more than anyone else was.”

“She’s… We’re friends.”

“Of course you are, I never said otherwise.” The barmaid chuckled. “I’m just saying that you can feel more for her than just friendship: you two always had a special connection.”

“Mainly because she’s always there.” Gray said with a roll of his eyes, but Mirajane could see he didn’t mind anymore that the Water Mage was frequently by his side.

“Which doesn’t make the connection any less special.” She said. “Being afraid of it doesn’t make it easier for neither of you, on the contrary: it hurts more than anything.”

“Mira…” Gray averted his eyes from the light blue of the woman. “I can’t. Too complicated.”

“So many things in life are complicated. But this? The way you look at her when you think no one can see? And the smile she can’t hide when she sees you?” Mira told him and Gray finally looked up to her. “Everything else might be hard and difficult, but that feeling I know you have when you two are together? The feeling you had when she was finally safe in your arms? That, Gray, it’ll only be complicated if you want it to be.”

“You could be a shrink.” The Ice Mage sighed in resignation. “I don’t know how to act.”

“Oh, don’t even try to give me that, mister.” Mira’s cheeks got stuffed as she pouted adorably. “You have been doing alright so far. Just act like you always do. But try to be a little more open to feel, okay?”

“If I go talk to her, will you shut up about it?” Gray offered as a peace offering.

“For now.” She winked at him and the man sighed, rising to his feet to go talk to Juvia.

The blunette was frowning deeply and wimping a little, he noticed as soon as he was close to her sleeping form. Worried – usually it took people a lot longer to fall asleep like she clearly did –, Gray approached and touched her shoulder, shaking her as gently as he could to wake her up and before he could call her name, Juvia opened her unfocused eyes and shoved Gray away from her with all her strength and a loud yelp.

For a moment, Gray was utterly confused, but the look in her eyes told him all he needed to understand why she was acting that way – it was the same look of fear she wore when they talked via lachryma.

“Get away from me!” The Water Mage yelled, gaining the attention to everyone at the guild.

“Juvia. It’s me.” Gray said calmly.

His voiced calmed the girl and also made her snap out of it; blinking fast, Juvia finally focused on where she was and who she was with. She was at the guild and the person who was close to her was her Gray-sama, not the Boss.

Seeing Gray’s – and everyone else’s – eyes on her (some curious, some worried), was too much. All she wanted was some hours of sleep and peace. “S-s-sorry.” Juvia mumbled as the day darkened and a loud thunder echoed through Fairy Tail; and Gray knew what that meant: Juvia was very upset.

Turning around, Juvia ran towards the door and not even the Ice Mage calling her name stopped her. He didn’t understand why she was leaving, but the woman seemed very keen to do so.

#

It took Gray just a couple of moments to realize that he needed to go after her: she was scared of something and he would be damned if he was going to let her deal with it alone, like she did a few weeks before.

He ran, following the rain and it didn’t take him too long to find her – it seemed that Juvia couldn’t run too far or fast enough to lose him, so when he spotted her leaning on a street lamp while the rain poured stronger by the second.

Gray didn’t care that his clothes were soaking wet and that people around them were running to their houses complaining about the sudden rain. All he cared was to get closer to Juvia and understand what she was so afraid of.

Getting closer to her, the Ice Mage called out her name. The blunette looked around for him and when their eyes met, Gray knew that she had been crying even if he couldn’t tell what tears were and what raindrops were.

“Juvia…”

“I-I-I-I… I can’t do this a-a-anymore.” Juvia let go of the lamp and took three steps back while shaking her head. “Too tired to fight against it.” She sobbed. “It will come and there’s nothing I can do…”

“Juvia…” Gray stepped closer to her, the rain still pouring around them. “I can help you.”

“No one can. It’s inside Juvia’s head.” The whisper barely heard above the heavy raindrops hitting the ground by the man in front of her. “Not a minute’s rest… Not… one…” The Ice Mage saw her eyes roll back and was fast enough to catch before she hit the ground.

The rain stopped not too long after, and as Gray stared at the woman in his arms, concerned, he noticed that he was no longer bothered with her proximity. Since the games, having her around was nice but the moment he held the Water Mage after finding her back in Hestire, he felt better if she was close enough to touch.

Gray sighed and picked her up bridal style. He couldn’t enter Fairy Hills and even if he did, they wouldn’t have privacy to talk and there was no way that he wouldn’t talk to her about whatever was happening, not when she was clearly upset. He had a close call with losing her once, he couldn’t take any chances.

#

The Water Mage came to when Gray opened the door to his apartment. She was confused and had to blink several times to notice that she was pressed against someone’s chest and when the blunette looked up and saw the man she was in love with, carrying her.

“What…?” Juvia said and blinked, trying to see if it was a dream – even though she hadn’t had a dream in a while.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Gray looked down and carefully lowered her, so her feet could touch the ground and, with wobbly legs, she stood up with the man by her side, still holding her by the elbows to stead her. “You still look tired, though. You’ve been unconscious for ten minutes.” When Juvia frowned in confusion, Gray continued to explain. “We were at the guild, you woke up scared, ran away and I found you.”

“Sorry.” She mumbled while recalling it and her eyes widened with her actions. “Juvia didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s alright; I was more startled than hurt.” Gray led her through the apartment. “I remember that you hit much harder.”

“Juvia is… so tired.” The blunette whispered, closing her eyes again and sighing deeply. “So, so tired.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Gray said gently. He was worried about her, and the way she had been acting for the past few weeks had been weird, instead of getting closer to her friends like she used to, the woman seemed to get more secluded. She didn’t even fuss around him as much as before. “You need to change these clothes; you are soaking wet too.” Gray pointed out and when she looked down to her clothes – as if just noticing them –, she tried to use her magic to dry them, but the Ice Mage stopped her. “No, you are too tired to do that; it would just make you feel worse and you need to regain energy, not lose it. You can stay here tonight.” Juvia stared at him in confusion and both stopped walking in front of a door. “You’re in my apartment.”

The Water Mage finally looked around and the place screamed ‘Gray’ all the way; when she woke up in Gray’s arms she didn’t feel the urge to know exactly where she was, because whenever they were, if he was with her, she would be fine. But then, looking around, she finally saw that she was indeed inside the apartment she’s only seen from the outside during the times she stalked him.

“Oh.” The girl was a little oozy because she hadn’t too much sleep for a while and she was pass the euphoric phase, at that point, all her forces had been sucked and her vision was blurry; her arms, too heavy; her mind, numb. “Juvia will… she will go home now.”

“No, no, no.” Gray stopped her before she could turn around. “You are too tired, wet and acting all weird.” He opened the door by their side. “Go, take a hot shower – not that I’ve done it, but I heard that it can make you sleepy – and I’ll find something you can wear.”

“Juvia doesn’t want to impose…” The woman should go home and deal with her problems by herself and not bother her Gray-sama with such silly things.

“You are not, I always tell you when you are, right?” the Water Mage nodded in agreement and Gray shrugged. “There you go. I’ll put some clothes here on the outside handle while you take a shower, there are clean towels in there.” He pushed her inside.

“Thank you.” Juvia whispered before closing the bathroom door.

“No problem.”

True to his word, Gray left a shirt and some clean boxers she could wear outside the door while trying not to think that there was a naked girl inside his bathroom. And not any girl, Juvia.

He had to keep himself busy, so he cleaned his bedroom the best he could – he wasn’t nearly as messy as Natsu was, but it didn’t mean everything was in its right place. After a few minutes, the trash was in its place and there were no underwear lying on the floor and whatever he needed hidden was stashed in his closet.

“Not tired anymore.” Juvia mumbled and the man turned around to look at her; her hair was wet, his t-shirt was loose around her and the boxers he lent her were barely seen under it. She was leaning on the doorframe, eyelids half closed.

“Sure you are not.” Gray actually chuckled and gave a few steps so he could be by her side. “Go lie down on the bed for a bit, okay?” He led her to the bed, amused with the pout on her lips.

Once she was settled on the bed, she mumbled, while arranging herself and hugging a pillow. “Just for a bit.”

“Sure.” The Ice Mage nodded. “I’ll go get a blanket, okay?” She nodded, while trying to find a nice position. Gray looked inside his closet, searching for a blanket; he didn’t use it but kept it just in case. Once he found it, the young man walked towards the bed. “I haven’t used it yet, but it’s clean…” Once he stared at the bed, he saw that Juvia was actually sleeping peacefully

Gray sighed and then walked towards the bed, putting the blanket over her sleeping form. She looked much younger than she actually was. He took a moment to just stare at her and thought of Mira’s words.

She was right, at that very moment, there was nothing complicated about the fact that Juvia was the most adorable thing while sleeping. Or the way his stomach seemed to flutter with the sight. Or how he started to caress her hair fondly (“Wait, when did that happen?”)

The Ice Mage decided to leave the room, it was better to let her sleep it off and whatever happened, he would be right outside to help her out.


End file.
